10.000 Percent!

A little old lady used to live next door. In the days before she left the old house she’d inhabited her entire life, she could be found rooting through the house and little yard, searching for a cigar box full of money she was convinced her late husband had hidden.  She never found it. I’m guessing that it never existed.

I think about her a lot as we continue a never-ending renovation of a late nineteenth century house. I think about her whenever I cut out dense, thick floorboards, filling the room with the aroma of pine as powerful and fresh as the day the tree was felled. I think about her whenever I open up a plaster wall, leaving bits of plaster dangling from horsehair and releasing yet another cloud of dust and sand. I think about her because I expect that I, too, will find some long-lost treasure.

I’ve found old brown newspapers that disintegrate to the touch, small toys, crumpled cigarette packs, and matchbooks advertising long-forgotten enterprises and products, like Trent Cream Ale, once produced in the Trenton brewery that later gave the world Champale.

Oh, and lots and lots of bobby pins. Seems bobby pins were much used back in the day.

But the other day, I thought I’d finally found something of real value. I removed an old baseboard and found, tangled in a thick, ancient dust bunny, a small, strange looking coin. I rubbed the dirt and grime off the coin to reveal a woman’s head in a feathered headdress, the date 1895, and “One Cent” on the back.

I brushed myself off and rushed excitedly to the Google machine. The year, I discovered, was notable for the fact that Jersey born Grover Cleveland was in his second (non-consecutive) term as president. Like today, there were sex scandals (Oscar Wilde was convicted of “"sodomy and gross indecency") and economic woes, with high unemployment persisting in the aftermath of the 1893 financial panic.

As for the coin, I learned that it is commonly known as an  “Indian Head” penny, even though the woman depicted was Lady Liberty in a Native American headdress. And I discovered that the coin has increased in value by nearly 10,000 percent! A similar coin sold on eBay for 99 cents. 

Oh, well. Maybe if I dig in the old rubbish pit in the backyard …